Beautiful Winter Weekend

It isn’t until it got wonderfully cold this weekend that I realized just how much I miss Winter. There is such beauty in Cold. There is such life in the briskness it adds to your step and the blood that flows to the tips of your ears to keep warm. There is such comfort in nights wrapped in blankets safe from the chill.

This little week of cold that is so uncharacteristically Midland has been a delight, even as my husband grumbles about the chill. I get home from work and just go take a walk because I want to experience it, any little bit I can find. I conjure memories of how the snow muffles sound and lights up the night with reflections of the moon, and I hope a little that the expected precipitation is enough this weekend to get out and see it again. I want to bustle around the kitchen and bake. I want to get out and see the individual snowflakes fall on my jacket. I want to enjoy life in the cold for the few days I get it.

I know it’s supposed to be 60 sometime next week and it will all be gone as soon as it came. And I know it’s no where near as cold and wintery as Montana actually is (highs in the negatives! Stay safe and warm peeps). But for this small moment in time I’m reveling in this.

Dating: Learning About Myself

Once upon a time Alex asked what the most unexpected thing about being in a relationship was for me. It was really early in our dating history, and I don’t know that I had much of an answer for him. But as time has continued to pass I’ve found that there has been one very unexpected result.

I’ve learned a lot about myself. Like, a whole freaking lot.

And when I say that I mean not the expected things. It being my first relationship I have expectedly figured things out like what I’m like as a girlfriend or what I appreciate and need in a boyfriend. But there’s little things about me that have always been there but have never come to mind.

An example: Alex and I were talking once about how long distances is weird because you don’t learn the things you’d generally learn about a person. He pointed out he doesn’t know my gait, which is one of those things you pick up on fairly quickly when you get to know someone. I relayed this casually to Dad when we were out for tacos one night. Dad chuckled, and quickly summed up my walking style as “walking with a purpose.” He said I was always walking to get somewhere, and I move in a brisk and not ambling manner. I had never even considered this aspect of myself. Once he said it, I knew it was true and has always been true, but it had never been brought to my attention.

There’s been other things. Perhaps because Alex and his family have been asking me the type of questions a person is not usually asked. What is my greatest insecurity? What are my greatest faults? These are the things one has a general feeling of, but I had never needed to put it into words before and fully realize them in myself (Or maybe that’s just my tendency to not focus on negative things, maybe other people have a more realized view of themselves). Making me specifically define them means that I can actually easily tell you what they are now. It’s been an interesting journey of self discovery, and it’s helped me to know the areas of myself I need to work on.

I’ve also learned because I’ve sat and watched people discuss me, and seen myself through their eyes. As I’ve sat with various friends and family and Alex, and he’s asked questions about what others think I need in a relationship, or what they appreciate about me, or who knows what random question is thrown out there, I’ve seen things I’ve thought insignificant about my character be pointed out as something important or I’ve been told a view of myself that I might not even agree with but which shows me how I might appear to others (one friend tried to describe me in one word as Authentic, saying I’m always just myself. With my tendency to hide my feelings, to take a bit to open up to people sometimes, I don’t entirely see it.)

It has been an entirely fascinating self-study, this dating thing. I’m curious to see what else I find out about myself.

An Open Letter to My Father

My father admitted to me the other day that he still occasionally checked my blog for new blog posts. And honestly, my first thought was “Oh, snap!” Not because I care that Dad see this very real side of me here, but because the last thing I thought he needed was my worries added onto his. I did a quick scan of my posts, and sure enough, found my words of worry specifically about him. He has asked if I care that he still reads my blog, and I have assured him I don’t. I was planning on posting something in the following vein even before I knew for sure he would read it, but now I am glad to know he’ll see this, maybe it will unknot some of the tangling emotions I have added to his pile.

Project time! We’ve had a lot of them over the years

Dad,
I love you so much. And I am sorry that you read my worries about you. They came from a mind crowded with a whole bunch of worries of the future, worries about the whole family. Mom was worried about you too, you know. She made me promise to look after you. Made me promise never to forget you. She should have known I would never let our family drift apart, that I would never neglect our relationship. But she loved you, and wanted you looked after. And I suppose I knew I never could do that as well as her, and so I feared. But let’s come back to that later.

In all honesty there have been times in my life when I haven’t felt like we were very close. I NEVER doubted you loved me, and I NEVER doubted that you would do anything to help me if I needed it. But I remember feeling like we didn’t really talk, or converse regularly, and I remember being very frustrated and hurt over it. Then one day Jenna made everyone in the family take the Meyers-Brigs personality test, and you ended up scoring as an ISTJ, which is what I was. There was a light bulb moment when I realized you and I functioned so similarly. We both hold our emotions so deep within us. We both are reticent when it comes to sharing and opening up. You wouldn’t know, but I think that was a major turning point for me in our relationship. I understood you, and understood what you did and didn’t do because I tended to do the same things. And somehow it suddenly didn’t matter that unlike Mom and I who might stay up late into the night ranting or whatnot, you and I had a quieter, less visible relationship, and that was okay.

That doesn’t mean that before that I don’t have the bestest of memories of the two of us. I’ve written to you of those before, if you recall, quite a while ago. I don’t think I even realized back then just how out of your way you went for me. I was thinking just the other day how many wild cat sanctuaries you let me drag you to on vacations. Or how you sometimes let me order dessert instead of dinner. My goodness, you spoiled this crazy cat girl. Teaching me to drive, teaching me to fish, teaching me to be independent and studious and strong. I remember you’d come to tuck me into bed at night and you’d start chanting “Fee, Fi, Fo Fum” just like Jack and the Beanstock. You never could give me a reason why you did it, or why you did it only for me. But I loved it. We’ve worked on so many projects, the most recent of which is your remodeled bathroom. I love that I’m the designated tile picker and how we can just dive into projects together.

You had always struck me as a person who didn’t need anyone but Mom, and I think that was a really sweet, beautiful marriage. And a lot of my worries for you  stemmed from what you would be without her. I was worried that with the one person you confided in and leaned on gone that you would bottle it all up inside. I was worried that as you hadn’t been very social of late (Due to wanting to stay close to Mom), you had developed a habit of it and  would not socialize anytime soon. And all this culminated in me picturing you as very alone, no matter what schemes I tried to form to make it not so.

But with the downward turn of Mom’s illness, that quiet friendship we had seemed to be morphing. We had already shared going to church together without the rest of the family for more than a year, as Christian stayed home with Mom, who couldn’t come. It was a simple pleasure to have that little thing that just the two of us shared, even though it came with the sad circumstances. And with that came a little more conversation into our lives. And I have of recent watched you open up more to everyone. I remember sitting in the kitchen talking to you sometime very early this spring, and having the thought “Is he confiding in me? When did that start to happen?” I have seen you make an effort to attend events and I have seen you hang out with friends and family and not dwell on the past, and it has cheered my soul greatly.

So shorten it all to say that while I won’t say I don’t still worry (I still worry about all the family, after all. I don’t know that that will ever change) I do not have those terrible fears that so beset me when I first wrote them down. And I have always loved you and I have loved the relationship we had, and I love how we have developed a new, deeper one.

I hope this post doesn’t bring you any pain, goodness knows I want to spare you any of that on my account. I just hope that you know that I think you’re going to be alright, as I think we all are. I am looking forward to all the conversations and the adventures we will have in the future. You’re the best of dads.

Love,

Your fellow early morning riser, your fellow quiet person, your Brat girl or Bratoria or whatever form of Brat and my name you can think of (I must have been a really snarky kid for all that), your daughter,

Victoria

 

Hey Tweety Bird, What Do You Want?

Picture from http://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/western-meadowlark 

 

Today I heard someone whistle, and the sound instantly reminded me of a meadowlark’s call. It made me realize that there are sounds that will take me back to some place, make me feel at home, and/or give me joy and calm, and the sound of a meadowlark is certainly one of them.

Some people think of robins when they think of spring. But it’s the meadowlark that makes me realize that winter is finally over. They’re the state bird of Montana, so it’s natural they are prevalent. We used to live at a place that had a giant chokecherry bush (chockecherries are certainly a topic I should expound upon eventually… I want to petition for them to become the state fruit)  and the meadowlarks would sit in it and sing all day, hopping around the field and just being so beautiful.

They have a very distinctive song. I remember my Mom once pointing out that it has the same rhythm as saying “Hey tweety bird, what do you want?” It’s one of those things that once you hear it you can’t unhear. And maybe it’s because of that that the sound always reminds me of Mom. And it reminds me of running through the fields and carving my name in sandstone formations that dotted our property or hiking up the road near the ridge line or swinging on the swing set, watching dad mow the sporadic lawn on one of those perfect, balmy spring days that make you want to take a nap in the sun.

They remind me of Montana and what it means to be carefree and they take me back to that time of innocent childhood.

It is, in short, a song that evokes the feeling of belonging, and home.

Amazing what a few short notes can do, isn’t it?

 

Book Preferences (Tagged In a Rapid Fire Post)

My dearest Amy over at Fernwehs Call has tagged me in a rapid fire Q and A about my reading preferences. As I always love to talk books, I thought I would rise to the challenge and answer the call.

ebooks or physical books?

Physical books are always my preference. I like owning them and being able to display them. I like the way it’s easier for me to get lost into the story for some reason. That being said, I have read a lot of books on my phones ereader (even back before I had a smart phone and my screen was literally maybe 2″ square) and love always having a book at my fingertips to read while waiting in line or for a few minutes here and there.

Paperback or hardback?

Hardback, mainly because they hold up so much better.

Online or in-store shopping?

If I know exactly what book I want, online. If I’m not sure, in-store. Especially used book stores.

Trilogy or series?

Trilogy. I like to get caught up in an expansive story, but I also like a finishing point. There are some really good series that keep me captivated for the longer read, but they’re harder to revisit because of the time involved.

Heroes or Villains?

Both. Any well crafted character intrigues me.

A book you want everyone to read.

Ooh. There’s books I love, but that’s not always the same thing, is it? I think I would suggest a book of short stories, not even a specific one. I think short stories are sadly underrated, and would like to see them rise in popularity.

Recommend an underrated book.

As someone who reads obscurer classics, there are so many. It’s really unfortunate so few people have read A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain. That book is comedy gold, and so well written.

The last book you finished.

Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers

Weirdest thing you used as a bookmark?

Nothing to weird. Scraps of paper, dollar bills…

Used books, yes or no?

Always and forever. Used books are a great way to try something new without much investment, to build up your collection, and can usually be found in pretty decent shape.

Top three favorite genres?

Classics. Mystery. Young Adult (guilty pleasure, I know. Most are rubbish but occasionally one has quite the engaging story and characters).

Characters or Plot?

Characters. I’ll forgive a lot of issues in a book if I simply have well written, lovable characters.

Short or long book?

Long, if it’s well written.

Long or short chapters?

Short. I like natural stopping places where I can ready a little here and there and not stop mid-action.

Name the first three books you think of.

Endurance – Alfred Lansing (I was talking with a coworker about great non-fiction just yesterday, and this book rightly came up.)

With Fire and Sword – Henryk Sienkiewicz (I once started learning Polish because of this novel. An all time favorite.)

Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Profit, Spy – Eric Metaxas (Currently what I am listening to on Audible. Fantastic story about a fantastic man)

Books that make you laugh or cry?

Laugh

Our world or fictional worlds?

Our world, though a fictional one is always welcome too

Do you ever judge a book by it’s cover?

Don’t we all?

Book to movie or book to tv adaptation?

Both! I love seeing favorite stories brought to life.

Series or stand alone?

Stand alone. Or series. Or whatever book is good and awesome. I welcome them all.

I Do So Love Quotes (Bonus Day!)

Upon stumbling across my book of favorite quotes, I knew a bonus day with quotes was warranted. So below is one last quote to finish off the challenge.

“If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest except precisely that point which the world and he devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proven, and to be steady on all the battle fronts besides i mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.” ~Elizabeth Rundle Charles

I don’t remember where I found this. Probably tucked in some book or other that I read. But the point is one that I’ve never thought of but which I think is very important. We can’t shy away from the hard battles, using the excuse we are fighting easier things.

I Do So Love Quotes (Day 3!)

I wonder why this is only a three day challenge. Seriously, quotes are awesome and I love searching for the one that I want to share. In fact, I have a feeling you will see a day 4 posted tomorrow, though the challenge will technically be over. Especially as I just remembered I have a favorite quotes book that I haven’t even referenced for these posts yet.

For today, I have a rather random one. I was reading The Innocence and Wisdom of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton today, when I remembered my favorite quote by him.

“Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese.”

Ah, Chesterton, how you see the world. This isn’t my favorite quote because it’s his best, or even perhaps the one I hold dearest by him. But every time my church’s bulletin has some deep and meaningful quote in the front by Chesterton, I always smile to myself and think, “Ah yes, but what about his thoughts on cheese?”

Perhaps I like it because in a world where so often you see only serious quotes from great Christian thinkers, Chesterton’s tend to be varied and interesting, and give a whole picture of a man who was, indeed, a deep and well versed thinker, but also a man with a sense of humor and fun.

So follows is a few of my absolute favorites of his, the ones that are deep or funny or just downright speak to me. Though I always will think of cheese first when I hear his name.

“An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.”

“Religious liberty might be supposed to mean that everybody is free to discuss religion. In practice it means that hardly anybody is allowed to mention it.”

“Fallacies do not cease to be fallacies because they become fashions.”

“We fear men so much, because we fear God so little. One fear cures another. When man’s terror scares you, turn your thoughts to the wrath of God.”

“If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly.”

“The most incredible thing about miracles is that they happen.”

“The criminal is the creative artist; the detective only the critic.”

And thus we see a man with a truly engaging knowledge and wonder of the world.

I Do So Love Quotes (Day 2)

“The way I see it, every life is a pile of good things and bad things. The good things don’t always soften the bad things, but vice versa, the bad things don’t always spoil the good things and make them unimportant.”
— Doctor Who, The Doctor, Season 5, Episode 10

I’ve already detailed on my blog how I’ve had some pretty great moments amidst pain and chaos. Life can be terrible and dark and horrifying, but there is beauty in it. The joy doesn’t erase the fact that there is pain, but the pain doesn’t erase the fact that there is joy. And thus life is a complicated tangle of emotions. It’s a good tangle though. And this Doctor Who quote, heck the whole episode, was a bittersweet reminder that life isn’t always smooth sailing and the seas will be filled with storms, but that makes it all the better when the sun will shine.

I Do So Love Quotes (Day 1)

“Maybe our favorite quotations say more about us than about the stories and people we’re quoting.” John Green.

I love quotes. People throughout history have fashioned words in such beautiful ways, ways that sum up so well the feelings or motives or life in general as I have often seen it. Thus when my dear Amy of fernwehscall.wordpress.com challenged me to a three days of blogging quotes challenge I was excited to jump on the bandwagon and post a few quotes over the next few days. Thank you, Amy!

Today I flipped through some of my favorite quotes on Goodreads, and found one by C.S. Lewis.

Friendship… is born at the moment when one man says to another “What! You too? I thought that no one but myself…

I love this quote, not only because I have certainly said the words before, but because it encompasses the magic that is friendship. Sometimes friendship grows up slowly as commonalities are found (sometimes it grows up even without things in common, now that I think of it) and sometimes it is a spontaneous thing that bursts forth as two people realize that they love spending time together. I love that rush of conversation when you realize you have a shared passion. And I love this quote that reminds me of those moments.

(And you’ve totally noticed I sneaked a second favorite quote in the post introduction, but whatever. I loved that quote too much to leave it unposted.)

 

Friends are Awesome – Especially Mine

So I’ve been feeling uber blessed recently due to the amazing people who are part of my life. The thing about friends – good friends – is that you can do anything with them and the time is special and worthwhile and wonderful, or it least it always seems so to me. Take last night, for instance. Sitting on my couch, contemplating the fact I had no plans and it was only 7 o’clock and I had already Netflixed, (totally a verb, right?), read, worked out and wasn’t sure how else to while away time, when I received a snap chat informing me that I should join some peeps for a last minute bar trivia team. I drove the 20 minutes to the bar, where our small team of 4 was totally decimated by the competition. But we finally won the random participant prize! Yay! We’ve been striving for that for months. And we did it while munching on amazing food, sipping even better drinks, and just generally enjoying each other’s company.

For Thanksgiving my roommate (and dear friend) Elizabeth and I decided to host. It was fun to see both our families crowded around the dining room table, eating pie (so, so much pie. I still have pie, like a week later. And trust me I’ve been eating it). There was a point where her dad asked me how 2 1/2 years of sharing an apartment had been for me, and both Elizabeth and I instantly answered “We hate each other.” Apparently we’re on quite the same wavelength, and while we certainly don’t “Hate each other,” we do share so many memories, whether she’s dragging me into some outdoor adventure I would usually hesitate to do but end up totally loving, or whether we’re marathoning Friends or MASH together while sipping tea. They’re all good memories and all moments I cherish.

My friend Amy came to visit me this month! I really can’t begin to convey how amazing that fact is. See, Amy belongs to a very beloved friend group of mine that was almost entirely started and grown over the World Wide Web. We have managed to see each other here and there over the years, once at summer camp, once in Texas for a conference, and twice for the random adventures of a graduation and crashing a mutual friends wedding. Which when you realize she’s been one of my closest friends for near on 10 years now is not a lot at all. While she was here we visited The Grand Escape Room (my favorite thing to do in Billings ever), went on quite the search for tea, drank way lots of tea, and explored the world wide cuisine my little city has to offer. I was so blessed to have her come see me, and so crazy amazed that for the first time ever I’ve seen her twice in one year, and have plans of seeing her again soon!

Ironically, the first time I have Apple Strudel is not in Germany. But at a very good German restaurant not far from my apartment.

We escaped the room! Yay! Also, if you are in Billings and you have not yet tried The Grand Escape Room, do so. Sign up at grandescaperoom.com

My sister Jenna (my siblings totally count as friends) and I were trying to do Nanowrimo this year, (I failed, miserably) which entailed a lot of writing, and especially a great write-in where I went over to her place, we grabbed coffee, wrote for ages, made pizza, watched Gossip Girl for a while, ate ice cream, and finally went to bed fell asleep on the couch at  3.

I watched White Christmas for the first time during a random pizza party. It is a delightful, well acted and engaging old movie which exceeded my expectations. I saw it over at the house of a family from church, who are always so good about opening their home to people coming over and just hanging out. They are always so good at not only making people feel welcome, but of asking how life is going and praying for whatever is going on in the day to day grind.

My Broskovich (=Brother: Christian) and I went Black Friday shopping. We set out at about midnight to see what deals we could grab (Walmart has awesome movie sales, and Khols had a great sale on boots I needed, yay!) While I can’t argue for stores staying open on Thanksgiving, especially Thanksgiving night for crazies like us, it was a blast running around with him. We ran out of places to shop around 3, but being wired on energy drinks we decided to eat leftover mashed potatoes and watch one of our new movies. It was grand.

I finally watched Doctor Strange! And was a terrible Marvel fan and missed one of the final end credits. But it was great hanging out with Christian and Lisa and Kate and enjoying a quite engaging if somewhat weird film.

There are so many people that aren’t represented here. These are just the events in the past few weeks that really stand out in my head. It doesn’t include the funny chats friends have sent, the after church discussions over coffee, the way Dad and I have already been drinking our signature drink of Jacks’ Irish Christmas now that eggnog is back on shelves… I’ve missed a lot, but I can’t ramble in this blog post forever.

Thank you all for being a part of my life. I know a lot of you won’t read this (Because a lot of you don’t know I even have a blog… That’s my fault) but I really love and cherish each and every one of you.